If you're getting tired of the world of Adobe subscriptions, Oliver Lawson has just launched a promising new digital painting app. Kala Paint is a one-time purchase, with no subscriptions and, as the developer emphasizes, no generative AI, ever.

Lawson is an Illustrator and Concept artist, and the idea behind Kala Paint is pretty simple: build the painting software he wished he'd had throughout his career. He's aiming to build a powerful and ambitious brush engine: each brush stamp runs on the GPU, and a 3,000px brush can reportedly feel as smooth as a 10px one.

There's a big focus on natural paint mixing, as well as non-destructive filters, GPU-accelerated Liquify, and a range of other tools you'd expect from professional painting software. Kala Paint gives the classic lasso painting technique a "deluxe" upgrade: you get presets and can use pen pressure to adjust color, edge softness, and more.

Time-lapse recording is also built in. Additionally, there's a Sketchbook Mode, where you can keep your paintings in virtual sketchbooks on a shelf and flip through the pages.

Kala Paint supports PSD and ABR import and export, while your main painting files are saved and opened in its native .wip format. It's currently available on Windows, with Linux support coming soon and a macOS version planned for later. The developer also has an iPad version on the roadmap.

Kala Paint is still in alpha, but it's already available to buy, or you can try the fully featured version free for 14 days. Join the Discord server and visit the official website.

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